Captiv8 wrote: The bottom line is that a good conspiracy theory (or news program a la Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly) is a handy substitute for actually thinking for yourself and learning independently.

Why do you think that a conspiracy theory means not thinking for yourself? Just because there are some CT that are outrageous/ignorant doesn't mean that an interest in CTs means you're being lazy and not thinking for yourself. There are dozens of conspiracies that have been proven that can be found with a quick search. A theory is just that and whether or not it is regarding conspiracies, science, religion ... it requires research to come to a reliable conclusion.

its not the interest in CT, it is the belief in it. CT are based on faith not fact. usually they are more simplified than the truth. the following is from a book called Idiot America by Charles P. Pierce:

A country that So readily rejects the official story about how its president was killed should not have taken almost three years to fully believe the truth about Watergate. It shouldn’t have taken the White House tapes—on the most damning of which, it should have recalled, President Richard Nixon tells his aide H. R. Haldeman to have the CIA turn off an FBI investigation into the break—in with a cover story about how this will open up “that whole Bay of Pigs thing"—to seal the deal. A country that readily puts shooters almost ever where in Dealey Plaza should not have found Iran—Contra to be so “complicated” that the criminals got away simply because the country got too bored to pursue them.

Logic dictates that a people who believe that their president was gunned down in broad daylight as the result of a conspiracy made up in part of dark forces within their own government would become aggressively skeptical, rather than passively cynical. They would be more difficult to govern, in the sense that they would become harder to fool. For example, you wouldn’t think of trying to scare them by floating stories that a tinpot tyrant in the Middle East could launch a fleet of drone aircraft, and that these puppet airplanes, having eluded a multi-billion dollar air-defense system, would then blithely cruise up and down the East Coast, spraying anthrax as they go. We entertain ourselves with skepticism or, at worst, cynicism. But we govern ourselves with apathy or, at worst, credulity.

The JFK conspiracy sells, so it remains nothing more than mass entertainment. Daley Plaza functions as a performance venue. Considering Dallas means accepting that, for more than forty years, we have believed the unthinkable and gone right on with our lives.

The JFK conspiracy is easily disproven, every single on of them but how come conspiracy theorists don't know that or the better question is; care to find out?

Last edited by Self Conscious on Tue Feb 15, 2011 5:22 pm; edited 1 time in total

ok, cool. you win at the internet i hope you feel awesome. i like how the person with 2 thousand more internet posts than me is calling me a lazy ass.

U jelly?

I was. I really was! Sorry about that, Valentines bluez had me down and the such.

Ha. <3 u

Just for you sugar

Tue Feb 15, 2011 5:16 pm

Bring that Beat Back

Joined: 20 Mar 2007
Posts: 854

Not speaking to the initial post, but in general, it's fascinating the "friends" people will keep and tolerate on Facebook. In no other setting would you want anything to do with many of these people (often including the past - re. high school) and yet there they are in their friends list.

Prune that shit. Every second of every day is important.

Tue Feb 15, 2011 7:11 pm

CandidBlack

Joined: 23 Jan 2011
Posts: 13
Location: Ireland

Bring that Beat Back wrote: Not speaking to the initial post, but in general, it's fascinating the "friends" people will keep and tolerate on Facebook. In no other setting would you want anything to do with many of these people (often including the past - re. high school) and yet there they are in their friends list.

Prune that shit. Every second of every day is important.

This is very true. I had a Facebook with which I added a lot of people from school whom I either didn't care for or actually hated, hence why I deleted it. A lot of them added me simply because they were being nosey motherfuckers. Yet, funnily enough, even with my new Facebook profile, I've found that I'm stuck in the same situation except this time it's with the people from school who were, at one time, my "friends". I'm almost at the point now where I want to block everyone from my old year, in an attempt at making it look as though I deleted my profile. Those people are live reminders of a past which I'd like to forget, not to mention that I never connected with them in the first place.

Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:33 pm

Raoul DeGroot

Joined: 30 Apr 2009
Posts: 2437
Location: Son Quest

Bring that Beat Back wrote: Not speaking to the initial post, but in general, it's fascinating the "friends" people will keep and tolerate on Facebook. In no other setting would you want anything to do with many of these people (often including the past - re. high school) and yet there they are in their friends list.

ok, cool. you win at the internet i hope you feel awesome. i like how the person with 2 thousand more internet posts than me is calling me a lazy ass.

U jelly?

I was. I really was! Sorry about that, Valentines bluez had me down and the such.

Ha. <3 u

Just for you sugar

What are we going to do? Obama is brainwashing our children! Nothing sinister about that at all.

Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:17 pm

Captiv8

Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Posts: 8546
Location: Third Coast

Self Conscious wrote:

firefly wrote:

Captiv8 wrote: The bottom line is that a good conspiracy theory (or news program a la Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly) is a handy substitute for actually thinking for yourself and learning independently.

Why do you think that a conspiracy theory means not thinking for yourself? Just because there are some CT that are outrageous/ignorant doesn't mean that an interest in CTs means you're being lazy and not thinking for yourself. There are dozens of conspiracies that have been proven that can be found with a quick search. A theory is just that and whether or not it is regarding conspiracies, science, religion ... it requires research to come to a reliable conclusion.

its not the interest in CT, it is the belief in it. CT are based on faith not fact. usually they are more simplified than the truth. the following is from a book called Idiot America by Charles P. Pierce:

A country that So readily rejects the official story about how its president was killed should not have taken almost three years to fully believe the truth about Watergate. It shouldn’t have taken the White House tapes—on the most damning of which, it should have recalled, President Richard Nixon tells his aide H. R. Haldeman to have the CIA turn off an FBI investigation into the break—in with a cover story about how this will open up “that whole Bay of Pigs thing"—to seal the deal. A country that readily puts shooters almost ever where in Dealey Plaza should not have found Iran—Contra to be so “complicated” that the criminals got away simply because the country got too bored to pursue them.

Logic dictates that a people who believe that their president was gunned down in broad daylight as the result of a conspiracy made up in part of dark forces within their own government would become aggressively skeptical, rather than passively cynical. They would be more difficult to govern, in the sense that they would become harder to fool. For example, you wouldn’t think of trying to scare them by floating stories that a tinpot tyrant in the Middle East could launch a fleet of drone aircraft, and that these puppet airplanes, having eluded a multi-billion dollar air-defense system, would then blithely cruise up and down the East Coast, spraying anthrax as they go. We entertain ourselves with skepticism or, at worst, cynicism. But we govern ourselves with apathy or, at worst, credulity.

The JFK conspiracy sells, so it remains nothing more than mass entertainment. Daley Plaza functions as a performance venue. Considering Dallas means accepting that, for more than forty years, we have believed the unthinkable and gone right on with our lives.

The JFK conspiracy is easily disproven, every single on of them but how come conspiracy theorists don't know that or the better question is; care to find out?

Pierce is certainly right in saying that CTs are a form of entertainment; the fact that some of them have prevailed over several decades is a testament to that. They give people the idea that things are much more exciting than the actually are and echo many a Scooby Doo plot: strange things are afoot, but behind it all is the nefarious masked man desperately waiting to be unveiled, if only a squad of gumshoes can find enough clues. Matter of fact, I'd say that there is a direct relation between the success of Scooby Doo and the answer to your question. The difference is that finding the bad guy ends the show, but then the mystery is gone and the fun subsides. Being relatively sure but not certain, in the end, is more fun than actually knowing.

Wed Feb 16, 2011 8:55 am

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